Guest Author: Désirée Zamorano

Désirée Zamorano has been a guest author here before. Her new novel is just out, and it may be something you haven't read before. Here's Des:

 Bringing The Amado Women to Life

When I cast about to commit at least two years of my life to my next uncertain project, there were a few of things I was sure about. I wanted to explore the lives of women, because our lives are multifaceted and filled with conflicting demands. I wanted to write about the women I knew, admired and loved: loyal, intelligent, funny. Married or single, mothers or not, loving and spiteful, petty and generous. Women as human beings in all our complexity.

The Pasadena/LA setting was automatic. Southern California is filled with ethnic and income diversity, conflict, beautiful settings and fascinating characters. Some of us hide behind gated communities, some of us go exploring. It happens to be where I live and what I enjoy knowing.

I also knew the complexion of my cast.

That’s where things get dicey, because as I looked around to pitch my completed novel, to potential agents, to potential publishers, there were plenty of marvelous family dramas by women, by gifted authors like Elizabeth Berg, Jodi Picoult, Ann Patchett or Ann Tyler, but none by Latinas, and none featuring a cast of aspirational or middle-class Mexican-Americans. I had done what Karen Joy Fowler had done with The Jane Austen Book Club, which was written a novel the author wanted to read. But would I be its only audience?

With each rejection I got more nervous. Even though Mexican Americans are California’s largest demographic, and the fastest growing across the nation, even though many of us have been here since before statehood, the lock on our portrayals in the media is fierce and limiting. I’ve seen so many hot mamacitas and inarticulate maids that when one shows up I change the channel or shut the book. The Amado Women could not be squeezed into either of these depictions.

I held my breath, crossed my fingers and made a phone call pitch to Cinco Puntos Press in El Paso. They wanted to see it. They ultimately published it. Hallelujah!

Now, many years since its inception, The Amado Women is out in public for total strangers to read. Like all authors, I’ve had my share of glowing reviews and not so glowing. What I did not anticipate was how many men would be moved by this novel. One of them wrote to me and said, “You’re the only person I’m going to tell, but I wanted to let you know that I burst into tears.” Never would this writer’s imagination have expected that. You see, I, too, have some preconceptions of who people are.

You can meet Désirée at one of her upcoming events

Wednesday, July 30 • 7 pm
Launch Party
Vroman’s Bookstore
Pasadena, CA

​Sunday, August 10 • 2pm

The Bluebird Reading Series​​
Avenue 50 Studio
131 N. Avenue 50
Highland Park, CA

Thursday, August 14 • 7 pm
Books Inc Opera Plaza
San Francisco, CA

Or find out more about her here. You can also follow here on Twitter @LaDeziree 

To read my review of The Amado Women, click on the cover icon to the right of this post.

Bookmarks: Slumming

Dive sent me a photo of the Divebrary. Looks like my book takes its position slumming on the shelf with Voltaire, Spenser and Shakespeare.

Those are pretty books, aren't they? They're not old--not antique, anyway. They're specially-made sets for modern collectors. I have a collection of Arden Shakespeare paperbacks, but it's not the same thing.

Pretty much anything ever published that there's more than one of has been published again in an ornate, gilded set, especially if it's in the public domain. Jane Austen, famous poets, Charles Dickens. You can even get the Harry Potter hardcover boxed set in an actual box. (Hard to tell, but it's probably cardboard.) I didn't find anything like Dive's collections, though. I don't know where you order those. From the back of magazines, maybe?

You'll never believe how long it took me to write this little post. You get on the web and start looking for these collectors' sets, and you are down a rabbit hole. But I guess that's true of the web, whether you're searching for books or socks.

I'll just take a moment to remind you this is the final day of Read an Ebook Week on Smashwords. Camelot & Vine is 25% off, and you can find other specials from the home page, including free ebooks. If you prefer a paperback, or if you read on a Kindle, take advantage of the C&V birthday month special on Amazon.

Margaret Finnegan: Goddess of Inspiration

Today is release day! You can now buy a brand spankin' new copy of the brand spankin' new novel, The Goddess Lounge (paperback here), by South Pasadena's Margaret Finnegan. That is a beautiful thing, partly because I love Margaret and partly because I love The Goddess Lounge (ebook here). Also partly because Margaret inspires me.

Margaret's blog, Finnegan Begin Again, would be inspiration enough to read her novel because one always wants more of her unique writer's voice. But she's gone further by involving her readers in the processes of publication and promotion. We've been reading about goddesses, we voted on the book cover, and when it was time to make book trailers we contributed photos of ourselves being goddesses.

Margaret has created two (two!) book trailers. Here's one:


Here's the other:


I'm in the second one twice! The first photo you see is one John took of me. Plus, that's my voice, reading from Chapter Two. I'm honored to be included.

The publishing industry has changed so much in the past few years that publishing the book yourself has become the way to go, or it's certainly at least as viable as the traditional way.  I love what Margaret's doing. Her energy and innovative ideas inspire me, and I can't wait to get my copy of The Goddess Lounge.

The Writer's Voice entry, "Camelot & Vine"

When Casey Clemens slams up against her 40th birthday her Hollywood acting career is floundering, her married boyfriend is cheating on her with his wife and she doesn't like herself any more than anyone else does. Then a freak accident lands Casey in the sixth century and she inadvertently saves the life of her hero, King Arthur. To protect herself, she tells the king she's a magical wizard from the future. (At least it's partly true.) King Arthur's thrilled. Britain is being attacked from all sides by invaders and he could use a good wizard. He's got Myrddin, but Myrddin's more scientist than sorcerer. Casey learns from Myrddin, makes friends and begins to like her new life. She's a good actor; for a while, her lie is her secret.

King Arthur's powerful ally Lancelot harbors his own secret: his affair with the king's wife, Guinevere. A wizard who knows and sees all is inconvenient, to say the least. Lancelot gives Casey a choice: leave or die. But Casey's stuck in the Dark Ages, unable to leave, surrounded by enemies and struck by a realization: she's in love with King Arthur and she's not going anywhere--not yet.

Camelot & Vine

 The day before my fortieth birthday was my last day as Mrs. Gone. For nine years, every American who turned on a television knew me as their wacky neighbor with the solution to their household cleaning problems. They're Gone! That's right! Gone! cleans everything! Which it didn't. I bought it once (not that the Gone! company would give me a free bottle) and never bought it again. That didn't mean I wouldn't endorse it on national television for a cut above union scale.

Being a product spokesperson was good work. I owned a sunny condo in the fashionable Los Angeles suburb of Toluca Lake. I drove a relatively new BMW coupe. The cleaning lady came on Tuesdays. I ate take-out and never cooked. I went to yoga occasionally, and occasionally showed up at acting class. I auditioned for and sometimes got parts in low-budget films.

I thought of it as an acting career until the day before my fortieth birthday when, on the set of my latest Gone! commercial, the director shouted, "That's a wrap!"

As usual, I handed over the product bottle to the props guy, returned my earrings to the costume girl and, avoiding the candy at the craft services table, strode directly out the studio doors.

The director followed me to my trailer. "Casey," he said.

"Bill. What?"

He dug his Nike toe into the studio lot asphalt. I waited. He cleared his throat and stared at his feet, like a kid who's afraid to tell his mom he got a bad report card.

Don't Bring Around a Cloud

UPDATE:
LITFEST PASADENA POSTPONED UNTIL MAY 12th.
With what's being called "100% chance of rain" Saturday, I guess it had to happen.
The links are still good! However, I promise to keep you informed.


John and I have a two bedroom house with a den. The den is my office, the extra bedroom is John's office and we share the master bedroom. (The dining room is Boz's bedroom. He keeps office hours on the front porch.)

I tell you this not to give you a home tour but to give you an idea of how many places we have for stashing and stacking books: shelves in the offices; the coffee table as well as built-in shelves (okay, we have some DVDs, too) in the living room; matching nightstands in the bedroom, each with a shelf for books, not to mention--okay, I'm mentioning--the books lining the tops of the dressers; plus the boxes in the garage full of books we haven't found shelves for. But we will, because we need to make room for more books.

Which brings me to the first annual LitFest Pasadena, Saturday, 9am to 5:30pm at Central Park, just south of Castle Green. Come on down! Admission is free. There'll be writers, panels, booksellers, booths, a children's area, fabulous food trucks and more. The full LitFest panel schedule is here.

Can't wait to see you!

Rain, you say? Yes, well. Ahem. There's a chance of rain.

Oh no! Wait. No. Oh joy! Wait.

Well, I hope the rain waits 'til Sunday because everyone's worked so hard. But we need our rain around here and we take it when we can get it. If rain happens, check the Pasadena Star-News online for contingency plans.

Pic of a Twit

When I was a kid, my nickname was Tweeter.

Please don't laugh, but yesterday I finally figured out how to upload a photo to Twitter using Twitpic. The first time I looked at Twitpic I must have been distracted or upside-down or sleep-walking, because it's about as easy as an application can be. Yesterday I cleared my desk and sat down with a cup of coffee, determined to figure it out, and it was like figuring out how to open an envelope.

This is the photo I posted. I hope you don't mind me posting it again here. I don't know if most of you follow me on Twitter. (There's a little birdie button over there on the upper left if you should choose to do so.) Even if you follow me, the chances that you were on at the moment I posted the picture are so slim that I don't mind posting it again.

I took the shot from my antique iPhone. My thought when I saw this was, I hope I never have to choose between natural light and bookshelves.

You know, when I was a kid, besides the fact that we
had no windows
or bookshelves,
walked to school ten miles in the snow,
made our own toys,
slaughtered our own chickens,
churned our own butter
and
made our own clothes out of burlap bags,
"twit" was something you called someone you thought very little of.

But I was Tweeter which, as I remember it, was quite another thing.

The First Cut Contest: The Fun Begins

In Dianne Emley's thriller The First Cut, the body of LAPD Officer Frankie Lynde is found beneath the Colorado Street Bridge. And no, she didn't jump.

A job for the LAPD? Nope. The bridge is Pasadena territory.

It's the first day back on the job for Emley's heroine, PPD Detective Nan Vining. Vining's had some time off after a close call of her own and her attacker is still out there, waiting. In tracking down Frankie's killer Nan feels more than sympathy for the dead officer. She can almost hear Frankie's voice. Or maybe what she hears is real.

Today The First Cut is released in paperback. So I'm trying something new: A CONTEST! And you don't have to be in Pasadena to play.

Here are the rules:
1. Read The First Cut (available at Vroman's or your favorite book store). You can read a description of the book on Dianne's website.
2. Answer four easy questions about the book, which I'll post January 6th.
3. Email your answers to me (link at upper left of blog) by the January 27th deadline.
4. Feel free to email me any questions you have about the contest, or post them in the comments section.

Three winners will be drawn from the correct entries. Each will win a copy of the second book in the Nan Vining Thrillogy! It's called Cut to the Quick, and it'll be released as a paperback original on January 27th.

Just for fun, throughout the month of January I'll post photos from Pasadena locations mentioned in the book. I'll even take requests (or make the attempt) as long as you send me the page number. (Enlarge the photo above to see where the body was found in The First Cut.)

I plan to do more features with other local writers in 2009. If you're a Pasadena author who'd like to try an interactive something on the blog, let's talk.

I love writers, writing, books and Pasadena, so what could be better than a Pasadena writer who set her story in Pasadena? Many thanks to Dianne for her participation and support!

This Contest Can Be Won

Pasadena's police headquarters is a dramatic building, with high arches and fancy scroll work that would fit right in on the Walt Disney Studios lot. But there's no funny business here. Whether you like the Pasadena cops or not, they're serious about what they do. Mess with the law in Pasadena and they don't just send a squad car, they send helicopters.

Call it overkill, but it seems to be working. I was able to find a few statistics on the web that show a dramatic drop in crime in Pasadena from 2005 to 2006. I'd like to know how we've been doing since then but wasn't able to find statistics for 2007. Could be it takes a while to compile them. PIO? Anyone?*

Pasadena's finest are featured along with their headquarters in The First Cut, a novel by Pasadena novelist and crime writer Dianne Emley. I introduced the soft-looking but tough-as-nails author here on PDP November 1st. Emley's Nan Vining Trilogy is finished. The First Cut comes out in paperback December 30th, to be followed in rapid succession by Cut to the Quick and The Deepest Cut.

So heads up, book lovers, especially those who love a scary, gritty, down and dirty read. Get ready to get your copy of The First Cut, because we're going to have a contest here on Pasadena Daily Photo. Watch for the official announcement here on December 30th.

*Vanda contributed three crime maps including this one from Realtor.com, with a 2008 copyright on it. (Click her links in the comments.)

There's now an ongoing art exhibit in the lobby of the building.

A .pdf about the building's design and architects here.